text:
Standard public health interventions to improve hand hygiene in communities with high levels of child mortality encourage community residents to wash their hands with soap at five separate key times, a recommendation that would require mothers living in impoverished households to typically wash hands with soap more than ten times per day. We analyzed data from households that received no intervention in a large prospective project evaluation to assess the relationship between observed handwashing behavior and subsequent diarrhea.
Methods and Findings
Fieldworkers conducted a 5-hour structured observation and a cross-sectional survey in 347 households from 50 villages across rural Bangladesh in 2007. For the subsequent 2 years, a trained community resident visited each of the enrolled households every month and collected information on the occurrence of diarrhea in the preceding 48 hours among household residents under the age of 5 years. Compared with children living in households where persons prepared food without washing their hands, children living in households where the food preparer washed at least one hand with water only (odds ratio [OR] = 0.78; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.57–1.05), washed both hands with water only (OR = 0.67; 95% CI = 0.51–0.89), or washed at least one hand with soap (OR = 0.30; 95% CI = 0.19–0.47) had less diarrhea. In households where residents washed at least one hand with soap after defecation, children had less diarrhea (OR = 0.45; 95% CI = 0.26–0.77). There was no significant association between handwashing with or without soap before feeding a child, before eating, or after cleaning a child's anus who defecated and subsequent child diarrhea.
Citation: Luby SP, Halder AK, Huda T, Unicomb L, Johnston RB (2011) The Effect of Handwashing at Recommended Times with Water Alone and With Soap on Child Diarrhea in Rural Bangladesh: An Observational Study. PLoS Med 8(6): e1001052. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1001052
Academic Editor: Zulfiqar A. Bhutta, Aga Khan University, Pakistan
Received: October 1, 2010; Accepted: May 18, 2011; Published: June 28, 2011
This is an open-access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication.
Funding: This program evaluation was funded by the United Kingdom Department for International Development (DFID) and UNICEF Bangladesh. UNICEF Bangladesh collaborated in the study design and reviewed and provided input on the manuscript. The first author developed the idea for the manuscript, conducted the analysis, drafted the manuscript and made the decision to publish.
Competing interests: SPL received a total of $3.2 million in research funding for 13 research projects on handwashing and household water treatment between 1996 and 2007 from the Procter and Gamble Company, a global manufacturer of soap.
Abbreviations: SHEWA-B, Sanitation, Hygiene Education and Water supply-Bangladesh
Editors' Summary
The resurgence of donor interest in regarding water and sanitation as fundamental public health issues has been a welcome step forward and will do much to improve the health of the 1.1 billion people world-wide without access to clean water and the 2.4 billion without access to improved sanitation. However, improving hygiene practices is also very important—studies have consistently shown that handwashing with soap reduces childhood diarrheal disease—but in reality is particularly difficult to do as this activity involves complex behavioral changes. Therefore although public health programs in communities with high child mortality commonly promote handwashing with soap, this practice is still uncommon and washing hands with water only is still common practice—partly because of the high cost of soap relative to income, the risk that conveniently placed soap would be stolen or wasted, and the inconvenience of fetching soap.
Handwashing promotion programs often focus on five "key times" for handwashing with soap—after defecation, after handling child feces or cleaning a child's anus, before preparing food, before feeding a child, and before eating—which would require requesting busy impoverished mothers to wash their hands with soap more than ten times a day.
Why Was This Study Done?
In addition to encouraging handwashing only at the most critical times, clarifying whether handwashing with water alone, a behavior that is seemingly much easier for people to practice, but for which there is little evidence, may be a way forward. In order to guide more focused and evidence-based recommendations, the researchers evaluated the control group of a large handwashing, hygiene/sanitation, and water quality improvement program—Sanitation, Hygiene Education and Water supply-Bangladesh (SHEWA-B), organized and supported by the Bangladesh Government, UNICEF, and the UK's Department for International Development. The researchers analyzed the relationship between handwashing behavior as observed at baseline and the subsequent experience of child diarrhea in participating households to identify which specific handwashing behaviors were associated with less diarrhea in young children.
What Did the Researchers Do and Find?
The SHEWA-B intervention targeted 19.6 million people in rural Bangladesh in 68 subdistricts. In this study and with community and household consent, the researchers organized trained field workers, using a pretested instrument, to note handwashing behavior at key times and recorded handwashing behavior of all observed household at baseline in 50 randomly selected villages that served as nonintervention control households to compare with outcomes to communities receiving the SHEWA-B program. The fieldworkers recruited community monitors, female village residents who completed 3 days training on how to administer the monthly diarrhea survey, to record the frequency of diarrhea in children aged less than 3 years in control households for the subsequent two years. The researchers used statistical models to evaluate the association between the exposure variables (household characteristics and observed handwashing) and diarrhea.
Using these methods, the researchers found that compared to no handwashing at all before food preparation, children living in households where the food preparer washed at least one hand with water only, washed both hands with water only, or washed at least one hand with soap, had less diarrhea with odds ratios (ORs) of 0.78, 0.67, and 0.19, respectively. In households where residents washed at least one hand with soap after defecation, children had less diarrhea (OR = 0.45), but there was no significant association between handwashing with or without soap before feeding a child, before eating, or after cleaning a child's anus, and subsequent child diarrhea.
What Do These Findings Mean?
These findings from 50 villages across rural Bangladesh where fecal environmental contamination, undernutrition, and diarrhea are common, suggest that handwashing before preparing food is a particularly important opportunity to prevent childhood diarrhea, and also that handwashing with water alone can significantly reduce childhood diarrhea. In contrast to current standard recommendations, these results suggest that promoting handwashing exclusively with soap may be unwarranted. Handwashing with water alone might be seen as a step on the handwashing ladder: handwashing with water is good; handwashing with soap is better. Therefore, handwashing promotion programs in rural Bangladesh should not attempt to modify handwashing behavior at all five key times, but rather, should focus primarily on handwashing after defecation and before food preparation. Furthermore, research to develop and evaluate handwashing messages that account for the limited time and soap supplies available for low-income families, and are focused on those behaviors where there is the strongest evidence for a health benefit could help identify more effective strategies.
Additional Information
Please access these Web sites via the online version of this summary at http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1001052.
- A four-part collection of Policy Forum articles published in November 2010 in PLoS Medicine, called "Water and Sanitation," provides information on water, sanitation, and hygiene
- Hygiene Central provides information on improving hygiene practices
Intervention trials promoting handwashing with soap in communities with high child mortality consistently report a reduction in childhood diarrheal disease [1]. Bolstered by these data, public health programs serving low-income populations commonly promote handwashing with soap. Across a wide range of low-income countries, however, handwashing with soap is uncommon. In a review of structured observations in 11 countries mothers of young children washed their hands with soap on average only 17% of the time after using the toilet [2]. Barriers to washing hands with soap in low-income communities include the high cost of soap relative to household income, the risk that soap left out in a convenient place would be wasted by children playing with it or stolen, and the time required and inconvenience of fetching soap [3],[4]. In contrast to the low frequency of handwashing with soap, handwashing with water alone is more commonly practiced. In the same 11 countries study, mothers washed their hands with water alone 45% of the time after toileting [2]. Because intervention trials of handwashing with soap consistently demonstrated a health benefit, handwashing promotion interventions focus almost exclusively on handwashing with soap [5].
A second common characteristic of handwashing promotion programs is a focus on five "key times" for handwashing. These include handwashing after defecation, after handling child feces or cleaning a child's anus who had defecated, before preparing food, before feeding a child, and before eating [5],[6]. Asking mothers of young children to wash their hands with soap after each of these critical times would typically translate into requesting busy impoverished mothers to wash their hands with soap more than ten times a day. If mothers also follow recommendations to wash hands after touching domestic animals, animal dung, potentially contaminated raw food, and after coughing or sneezing [7], the number of recommended times for handwashing with soap would often exceed 20 times per day. In low-income households, soap is used judiciously to preserve money for food and other essentials [8]. Washing hands with soap this frequently, especially if practiced by all family members, would affect household finances. In order to preserve the household supply of soap, families commonly store soap away from the most convenient place to wash hands [3]. Washing hands with soap 10 or more times per day also takes a lot of time, time that mothers in low-income settings do not have in abundance [9]. The time required for handwashing with soap is especially onerous if lathering is continued for the full recommended 20 seconds [10] and soap is not kept at the most convenient place to wash hands. A third barrier to promoting handwashing at five different key times is the complexity of the message. A critical review of health communication interventions in low-income countries concluded that interventions that focus on a few messages were more effective than communication interventions targeting many behaviors [11].
Two steps that might improve the effectiveness of handwashing promotion interventions would be to encourage handwashing only at the most critical times for interrupting pathogen transmission and clarifying whether handwashing with water alone, a behavior that is apparently much easier for people to practice, should be encouraged. There are however, few data available to guide more focused recommendations.
In 2007, the Government of Bangladesh Department of Public Health Engineering in collaboration with UNICEF and with support from the Department for International Development (DFID) of the British Government launched a program, Sanitation, Hygiene Education and Water supply-Bangladesh (SHEWA-B) that is among the largest intensive handwashing, hygiene/sanitation, and water quality improvement programs ever attempted in a low-income country. The intervention targeted 20 million people in rural Bangladesh. As part of the assessment of the program's impact, fieldworkers conducted household structured observations at baseline in 50 randomly selected villages that served as nonintervention control households to compare with outcomes to communities receiving the SHEWA-B program. Community monitors assessed the frequency of diarrhea in control households each month for the subsequent 2 y. We analyzed the relationship between handwashing behavior as observed at baseline and the subsequent experience of child diarrhea in these households. The objective of this analysis was to identify which specific handwashing behaviors were associated with less diarrhea.
Ethics Statement
UNICEF publicly requested bids for the evaluation of the SHEWA-B program. The International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (ICDDR,B) was selected through a competitive process and signed a contract with UNICEF for the evaluation. From UNICEF's perspective, and the perspective of the Government of Bangladesh, this was not a research contract. It was a contract to evaluate a US$90 million program targeting 20 million people across rural Bangladesh. The Government of Bangladesh separately contracted with 58 organizations to implement the intervention across 68 rural subdistricts on an aggressive launch schedule. The program evaluation required a preintervention baseline survey. If the evaluation team postponed field work for the 12- or more wk process that is characteristic for local human study participant protocol review and approval, ICDDR,B would have been unable to provide a preintervention measurement. This would have reduced the ability of ICDDR,B to assess the program, and would represent a failure to meet contractual obligations. We received ICCDR,B administrative approval to classify this activity as a nonresearch program evaluation that did not require independent human study participant review because the primary goal of this activity, particularly from the sponsor's perspective, was program evaluation and not generation of new generalizable knowledge.
The plan for the evaluation was reviewed by UNICEF and the Government of Bangladesh Department of Public Health Engineering, but was not reviewed by an independent human study participant committee. Each field worker received formal training in taking informed consent. As part of the consent process the field worker clarified how much time we were requesting from prospective participants. Field workers explained that there was no individual benefit or compensation for participation, that there would be questions about use of water, toilet facilities, and handwashing, and noted that these topics may be uncomfortable or that it may be uncomfortable to have a stranger in their home observing household activities. Twice during the consent process the field workers specified that participation was voluntary. They explained that even if the participant originally provided consent, he or she could withdraw consent at any time. Field workers secured written informed consent from each participant. Fields workers provided participants with contact information for the study coordinator and the research administration office of ICDDR,B if they had any questions. All collected information was kept in locked rooms. Only staff whose responsibilities included working with the data had access to the data. Study supervisors made unannounced visits to field teams to ensure that field workers properly implemented the enrollment and consent process.
Study Population
The SHEWA-B program targeted 68 subdistricts (upazilas) in 19 districts. The government and UNICEF selected the specific intervention upazilas because of the perceived need and the absence of other active programs addressing water, sanitation, and hygiene in these communities. Upazilas are further subdivided into unions. We listed all of the unions and their populations in the 68 targeted subdistricts and randomly selected 50 unions with the probability of selection proportional to the size of the union. For each SHEWA-B intervention upazila where a union was chosen for evaluation we selected a control upazila that had similar geography, hydrogeology, infrastructure, agricultural productivity, and household construction, and where the government confirmed that no other major water-sanitation-hygiene programs were ongoing. We selected unions for evaluation in the control upazilas using the same probability of selection proportional to size used to select unions for evaluation in the intervention upazilas.
Within each selected union we listed all village names, and used a random number generator to select the evaluation village. Fieldworkers asked residents of the selected village to identify the village center. Fieldworkers identified the household closest to the village center that had a child <5 y of age and sought consent to permit a fieldworker to observe household practices for a single morning. To enroll the next household, fieldworkers looked for the next closest household with a child <5 y of age. Fieldworkers repeated the process for enrolling additional households until ten households in each selected village were enrolled for structured observation. Households enrolled for structured observation that had children <3 y of age, and so would remain <5 y of age during 2 y of follow-up, were also invited to participate in monthly disease surveillance.
Data Collection
Structured observation.
Trained fieldworkers conducted a single 5-h structured observation of handwashing behavior of all persons in selected households between 9:00 AM and 2:00 PM, a culturally acceptable time for visitors and a typical time period for a range of personal hygiene and food preparation behaviors. Using a pretested instrument, fieldworkers noted handwashing behavior at key times—before preparing food, eating or feeding a child, and after defecating or cleaning a child's anus who had defecated. Fieldworkers recorded handwashing behavior of all observed household residents because multiple persons commonly perform various caretaking roles and have contact with young children and all of these interactions may transmit diarrheal pathogens.
When observing food preparation, fieldworkers classified the food preparer's hands as contaminated if at least one hand contacted raw food or soil. Once hands were contaminated, fieldworkers noted whether or not the food preparer washed her hands before touching food. For preparing a single food item, fieldworkers often observed multiple opportunities for the preparers' contaminated hands to touch food. The fieldworkers recorded the most commonly observed handwashing behavior following contamination for each food item prepared.
Cross-sectional survey.
Two months after the structured observation, fieldworkers returned to the households and administered a cross-sectional survey. Questions included on the cross-sectional survey included demographic information as well as household construction and possessions to permit a measurement of acquired household wealth.
Monthly surveillance.
Fieldworkers recruited one woman (a community monitor) from each evaluation community who was at least 18 y of age and who had completed at least 8 y of formal education to visit each of the enrolled households each month and administer a brief questionnaire to collect information on each child <5 y of age. These community monitors participated in a formal training program to learn how to administer the questionnaire. The initial 3-d training included 2 d of classroom instruction with role playing followed by 1 d of field testing. After 12 mo the community monitors participated in a 1-d refresher training session. One of the monthly surveillance questions asked whether the child had diarrhea during the preceding 2 d. Another question asked if the child consumed only breast milk in the preceding 24 h. This surveillance continued for 24 mo following the cross-sectional survey. The community monitors were paid a modest stipend.
Data Analysis
Exposure categories.
Drawing water from a hand pump to wash hands or pouring water from a pitcher requires one hand. Rural Bangladeshi residents commonly run water over the "dirty hand" to clean it. If they use soap they sometimes roll the soap within the one hand. For each of the five key handwashing opportunities we classified the handwashing behavior into one of five categories: (1) no observed handwashing, (2) washing one hand with water alone, (3) washing both hands with water alone, (4) washing at least one hand with ash or mud, and (5) washing at least one hand with soap. We selected these categories because across the five key handwashing opportunities these categories displayed a range of handwashing behaviors that generally included sufficient observations to support analysis of associations.
Within each household, during the 5 h of observation fieldworkers often observed multiple occasions of the same opportunity for handwashing. For example, because there may be multiple children in the household and multiple snacks in addition to the main meal, the fieldworkers might observe four opportunities to wash hands before feeding a child. The handwashing behavior might be different in each of these four episodes, and fieldworkers recorded each episode separately. We classified the thoroughness of handwashing along a scale: the least thorough handwashing was no handwashing, washing one hand with only water, washing both hands with only water, washing with mud/ash, and washing with soap were progressively classified as more thorough handwashing. The household's handwashing behavior for each key time was classified on the basis of the most thorough handwashing behavior observed.
We considered drying hands with a clean towel or allowing hands to air dry before touching another surface as optimal hand drying. We classified drying hands on a visibly dirty towel, drying hands on clothing, or not drying hands before touching another surface, as progressively less optimal hand drying. We classified the household's hand drying behavior for each handwashing opportunity on the basis of the most optimal hand drying behavior observed at that key time.
Household wealth.
We used principal component analysis of 21 household characteristics (Table 1) to evaluate household wealth [12]. We excluded hygiene and sanitary infrastructure, because we wanted to analyze the impact of wealth independent of the specific facilities that might contribute to handwashing. We analyzed variables in the wealth index by means or frequencies and calculated score coefficients. We used the correlation matrix of the 21 variables to calculate sample weights [13]. We calculated the coefficients by rounding the expression (Loading/standard deviation)×100 to the nearest integer. We used the first principal component as the wealth score [14].
Modeling the handwashing–diarrhea relationship.
We calculated odds ratios to evaluate the association between the exposure variables—household characteristics and observed handwashing—and diarrhea. To account for the repeated observations for diarrhea in single households and the clustering of observations in villages we used general estimated equations to calculate these adjusted odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals [15].
We constructed a multivariate model for each of the key times when handwashing behavior was significantly associated (p<0.05) with diarrhea in the bivariate analysis. We began with a bivariate model that included handwashing behavior, and sequentially added each of the household characteristics that were associated with diarrhea in bivariate analyses. The final multivariate model retained all those variables that both significantly improved fit of the model (p<0.05) and were independently associated with diarrhea (p<0.05).
We used a nested correlation structure for all general estimated equations analyses to account for at the first level the clustering of measures within the same village, and at the second level the clustering of repeated observations within households. We used SAS for Windows (PROC GENMOD) Version 9.1 (SAS Institute) for the general estimated equations modeling.
The evaluation team completed structured observations, baseline cross-sectional interviews, and initiated monthly surveillance in 347 households that did not receive the SHEWA-B intervention. Community monitors collected data on 465 children who lived in these 347 households for at least 1 mo. In the first month of diarrheal surveillance, there were 379 children <5 y living in these households. Their mean age was 19.2 mo. During 24 mo of follow-up, 66 children were born into these households, 20 children moved into the surveillance households, 24 children moved or dropped out, one child aged out, and 12 children died. The mean age of participating children after 24 mo was 37.7 mo. Among the 10,234 potential monthly child assessments from the time a child was first identified in a surveillance household, community monitors completed data collection for 9,897 (97%).
A third of the fathers and more than a quarter of the mothers had no formal education (Table 1). Over 90% owned their own home, but their median land holdings were quite small. Over 80% collected drinking water from shallow tube wells and three-quarters had access to an improved latrine. There was little difference in household characteristics between the 347 households included in the general analysis and the 102 households where fieldworkers observed a handwashing opportunity after defecation, though households where fieldworkers observed defecation owned somewhat more agricultural land. Within a household on the day of observation, handwashing practices before preparing food and after defecation varied, but fieldworkers noted the most thorough behavior commonly among all observations (Table 2).
Caregivers reported that the child had diarrhea in the 48 h preceding the monthly interview in 947 (9.6%) of the 9,897 monthly assessments. In the bivariate analysis, household characteristics that were significantly associated with less child diarrhea included the mother or father having 7 or more years of education, a wealth index in the fourth quintile and ownership of a television, radio or mobile phone (Table 3). Children under the age of 2 y and observations during the first year of the surveillance were significantly more likely to have diarrhea (Table 3).
Mothers reported at least some breast-feeding of their <1-y-old children in the preceding 24 h in 93% of monthly visits and reported exclusive breastfeeding of their <6-mo-old children in the preceding 24 h in 55% of monthly visits. Young children were both more likely to be breastfed and more likely to have diarrhea. After adjustment for age, neither any reported breastfeeding nor exclusive breast-feeding was associated with significantly less diarrhea.
Fieldworkers observed at least one opportunity to wash hands before preparing food in 281 (81%) of the households during structured observation. Handwashing before preparing food was associated with less diarrhea in the subsequent 2 y of follow-up (Table 3). In households where food was prepared without washing hands, children had diarrhea in 12.5% of monthly assessments compared with 8.3% in households where one hand was washed with water only, 6.9% where both hands were washed with water only, and 3.7% where at least one hand was washed with soap (Table 3). Food preparers commonly washed one or both hands with water only, but fieldworkers observed food preparers washing at least one hand with soap in only three households (1%).
Fieldworkers observed at least one opportunity to wash hands after defecation in 102 (29%) of the households during structured observation. Fieldworkers observed only a single household where residents never washed their hands after defecation. Handwashing with soap was much more common after defecation than before food preparation. In 25% of households, at least one household resident washed at least one hand with soap after defecation. Among the 27 observed episodes of handwashing with soap after defecation, in eight (30%) both hands were washed with soap. Children who lived in households where fieldworkers observed at least one hand washed with soap after defecation experienced substantially less diarrhea in the subsequent 2 y of follow-up compared with children who lived in households where only one hand was washed with water after defecation (Table 3).
The fieldworkers' observations of handwashing before feeding a child, before eating, and after cleaning a child's anus who had defecated were not associated with subsequent diarrhea (Table 3).
Among household residents observed washing hands, fieldworkers observed optimal hand drying, either allowing hands to air dry or drying hands on a clean towel, uncommonly, ranging from 3% before eating to 17% after cleaning a child's anus who had defecated. Children who lived in households where optimal hand drying was observed had somewhat less diarrhea than other children, but none of the observed differences were statistically significant.
In the multivariate analysis of structured observations before preparing food, washing both hands with water only and washing at least one hand with soap were both independently associated with significantly less diarrhea morbidity during 7,999 subsequent monthly assessments for diarrhea (Table 4). The number of months since initiating surveillance, child age less than 24 mo, father's education, and household ownership of a mobile phone were also independently associated with diarrhea, but the odds ratios for the structured observation of handwashing before preparing food in the multivariate analysis were nearly identical to the bivariate odds ratios.
In the multivariate analysis of structured observations after defecation, washing at least one hand with soap was independently associated with significantly less diarrhea in the 2,952 subsequent monthly assessments (Table 4). With a smaller sample size, the month since initiating surveillance was the only other factor independently associated with diarrhea. The odds ratios for the structured observation of handwashing after defecation in the multivariate analysis were nearly identical to the bivariate odds ratios.
In 50 villages across rural Bangladesh where fecal environmental contamination, undernutrition, and diarrhea are common, in those households where fieldworkers observed food preparers washing their hands before handling food, children under the age of 5 y experienced less diarrhea over the next 2 y compared with children living in households where food preparers did not wash their hands before preparing food. This observation suggests that before preparing food may be a particularly important time to promote handwashing [16].
Tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, and various seasonal vegetables and greens are common components of meals in rural Bangladesh. Some of these vegetables are served raw but most are boiled and made into a curry that is commonly served with rice, the primary staple of the Bangladeshi diet. Many foods that are not further cooked, for example boiled root vegetables, fruits including bananas, and dried fish are often mashed and mixed by hand with spices and other ingredients during food preparation. Raw vegetables are commonly contaminated with pathogens and are a common vehicle for gastrointestinal pathogen transmission. Numerous outbreaks of gastroenteritis from a variety of pathogens have been traced to raw vegetables [17],[18]. The surface of raw cut lettuce and tomatoes is a hospitable environment for the growth of Shigella and Salmonella [19]–[21]. Similarly, there is considerable microbiological and epidemiological evidence that implicates cross-contamination of food as an important pathway for gastrointestinal pathogen transmission [22],[23]. Food that is inoculated with bacterial pathogens from contaminated hands may provide a nutrient rich environment that permits exponential growth for numerous pathogens [24]–[27]. The risk of diarrhea for many bacterial pathogens is proportional to the dose of the pathogens ingested [28],[29]. In several outbreaks of bacterial gastroenteritis, food that was contaminated several hours before serving was associated with high attack rates of gastroenteritis among persons who consumed it [30].
If persons preparing food did not wash their pathogen-contaminated hands before touching raw vegetables and rice, these foods may have become contaminated with gastrointestinal pathogens, which could subsequently multiply in a conducive growth environment before consumption. However, if the vegetables were cooked at a high enough temperature for a long enough time the pathogens would not survive and would not be transmitted. In future research, it would be useful to have fieldworkers specifically code the context of the handwashing opportunity around food preparation, so that the association between handwashing before handling raw vegetables and other foods that were subsequently cooked, handwashing before handling foods that were eaten raw, and handwashing before cross contaminating food that was not further cooked could be separately assessed.
In contrast to standard recommendations for handwashing that stress the central importance of using soap and specify detailed techniques for washing underneath fingernails, continuing lathering for over 20 s, and using either a clean towel or air drying to ensure effective handwashing [10], in this observational study, children who lived in households where food preparers practiced suboptimal handwashing (including briefly washing their hands with water alone) experienced significantly less diarrhea than children living in households where the food preparer did not wash hands at all. Fieldworkers did not directly measure the duration of handwashing with soap in this study, but in another study that used structured observation in urban Bangladesh to assess handwashing behavior and timed the duration of handwashing with soap with a stopwatch, the baseline mean duration of handwashing with soap was 5 s before preparing food and 11 s after defecation [31].
Although the benefits of handwashing with water alone observed in this evaluation conflict with standard recommendations, they are consistent with an older randomized controlled intervention study from urban Bangladesh. Stanton and Clemens used structured observation to observe handwashing behavior and noted an association between washing hands with or without soap and reported childhood diarrhea in a case control study in low-income urban communities in Dhaka Bangladesh [32]. In a subsequent intervention study in households that received the intervention, food preparers were significantly more likely to wash their hands with or without soap compared with food preparers in nonintervention households (49% versus 33%) [32]. Intervention households reported 26% less diarrhea than nonintervention households.
Microbiological studies demonstrate that washing hands with water alone reduces the concentration of various bacteria on hands [4],[33]–[35]. The reduction in these bacteria is generally less than the reduction in hand contamination following handwashing with soap [4],[33]–[36]. Field workers did not record the source of water used to wash hands, but the most common source of household water in rural Bangladesh is shallow tube wells. In other studies approximately 40% of water samples directly collected from shallow tube wells in Bangladesh were contaminated with fecal bacteria, though generally at a low-level of contamination [37],[38]. The present evaluation suggests that even the modest reduction in hand contamination achieved by washing with water alone reduces the risk of pathogen transmission at least during food preparation, albeit to a lesser degree than handwashing with soap.
The low proportion of households that followed recommended hand drying procedures suggests that substantial efforts would be required to change community habits to conform with hand drying recommendations. Since children living in households that practiced recommended hand drying behavior did not have significantly less diarrhea than other households, these data suggest that efforts to promote improved hand hygiene would be better focused on behaviors more strongly associated with child health, for example on handwashing before preparing food and after defecation, than on prescribing specific hand drying behavior.
People wash their hands more frequently when they know they are being observed [39]–[42]. In a previous study in rural Bangladesh that placed accelerometers within bars of soap to detect soap motion, the presence of an observer increased the frequency of soap motions consistent with handwashing by 35% [43]. Since Bangladeshi culture views adult feces as impure [8], social desirability bias may have increased observed handwashing with soap, especially after defecation. In the Bangladesh motion sensor study, residents of households with more education and who owned a mobile phone or watch were more likely to increase handwashing in the presence of an observer, and in the present study households with more education and those that owned mobile phones or televisions had less diarrhea [43]. Thus, an alternative interpretation of these observations is that the association between washing hands and subsequent childhood diarrhea is not causal. Rather, the observed reactive handwashing behavior might be an indicator of broader hygiene awareness that identified a subset of households that practiced a number of behaviors that contributed to less childhood diarrhea.
But there are two difficulties with this alternative interpretation. First, the strong association of handwashing with water alone before preparing food with diarrhea is less likely to result from social desirability bias, because there is no strong cultural norm for handwashing before preparing food. Indeed, only 1% of households washed hands with soap before preparing food. If household residents washed hands before preparing food because of social desirability bias that was then linked to other behaviors associated with less diarrhea, then we would also expect to find a significant association of diarrhea with handwashing before eating, before feeding a child, and after cleaning a child who defecated, associations that were not significant in this analysis. A second difficulty with attributing the observed associations to a theoretical unknown, unnamed, and unmeasured confounder is that the analysis implies that such a causal pathway for reduced diarrhea was independent of education, wealth, exclusive breastfeeding, and other evaluated household characteristics. An unmeasured personal or household characteristic that is so powerful that it dominates the relationship between handwashing and diarrhea, but is so elusive that we cannot even name it, seems a less likely explanation than pathogen contaminated hands and food, a biologically plausible explanation that invokes a pathway of gastrointestinal pathogen transmission repeatedly demonstrated in other contexts.
The observation in this evaluation that children living in households where residents washed their hands with soap after defecation had less diarrhea compared with children living in households where handwashing after defecation was less thorough is consistent with findings of previous intervention studies [1] and with handwashing interrupting the transmission of pathogens from the gastrointestinal tracts of household members to a susceptible child. The lack of a significant association of diarrhea with handwashing after cleaning a child's anus who defecated or handwashing before feeding a child or before eating also have plausible microbiological explanations. A child's gastrointestinal tract and immune system has already been exposed to the organisms in his/her own feces. Further exposure to these organisms is unlikely to cause clinical illness in the child. Unwashed hands can transmit pathogens to food, but when contaminated hands contact food at the time of eating or feeding, the dose of ingested pathogen is limited to the number of organisms that are passively transferred from hand to food. In contrast, when pathogens are transmitted to food items that are stored and not further cooked, bacterial pathogen populations may reproduce exponentially, resulting in a much higher dose of pathogen and a greater risk of diarrhea.
An important limitation of this study is that measuring handwashing on a single day risks misclassifying exposure. Among mothers in Burkina Faso, observed handwashing behavior after cleaning a child who had defecated was concordant with observations on a different day between 57% and 73% of the time [44]. This imperfect repeatability of handwashing assessments risks misclassifying exposure, which reduces the statistical power to identify associations. Such misclassification could explain why handwashing at some key times was not associated with less child diarrhea in this evaluation. However, handwashing in this evaluation was not classified on the basis of a single observation, but on the basis of the best behavior observed among multiple observations within the household (Table 2). Handwashing is a habitual behavior [2]. For example, in the Burkina Faso study, not washing hands on one occasion was significantly associated with subsequent behavior [44]. Importantly, even with reduced power from misclassification, the Bangladesh evaluation presented in this article identified associations between handwashing at two biologically plausible occasions with reduced prevalence of subsequent diarrhea.
A second limitation is that fieldworkers observed an opportunity to wash hands after defecation in only 29% of households. The resulting limited statistical power precluded a thorough assessment of the utility of washing hands after defecation with water only or with ash/mud, the contribution of other determinants of diarrhea, or a combined model that included both handwashing before preparing food and handwashing after defecation. However, even with limited power there was a strong association between handwashing with soap and less subsequent diarrhea, and the point estimates of the odds ratios are suggestive of less diarrhea for handwashing with water alone.
A third limitation is that different gastrointestinal pathogens have different routes of transmission within different contexts, which might limit the generalizability of this study. It is possible that transmission of gastrointestinal pathogens from hands to food during preparation is a less important route of transmission in other settings. Additionally, in settings where water to wash hands is more heavily contaminated with feces than available water in rural Bangladesh, washing hands with water alone may be less protective. However this evaluation was conducted in 50 rural villages in 26 districts across Bangladesh and Bangladesh is the eighth most populous country in the world, so the analysis is not identifying a highly isolated phenomenon. In an assessment of hygiene indicators in rural Nicaragua, washing hands before preparing food was the single hygiene indicator most strongly associated with child diarrhea [16]. Nevertheless, it would be useful to conduct similar evaluations in other contexts.
A fourth limitation is that the program evaluation was not designed to evaluate the hypothesis that observed handwashing behavior was associated with a change in the prevalence of subsequent diarrhea. Because this is a secondary analysis of the data, there is some risk of data mining to identify an interesting but ultimately not robust finding. However, we planned these data analyses at the time we designed the program evaluation. There was a dose effect between thoroughness of handwashing before preparing food and subsequent observed diarrhea and the associated p-values were <0.005.
An important flaw in this evaluation was that we did not have the protocol reviewed by an independent human study participant committee. The amount of time we asked from participants, the intensity of the interaction with the field team, and the use of these data to draw generalizable insights to improve global scientific understanding mean that the activity had substantial research components and should have been reviewed by an independent human study participant committee. The study team did implement standard procedures to minimize risks and harms to evaluation participants, but similar future evaluations should be reviewed by human study participant committees. Rigorous evaluations of large public health programs provide insights that can translate into improved programs that save lives and improve community health. However large public health programs in low-income countries often have extremely tight implementation schedules. Human study participant committees in low-resource settings may need to develop additional capacities to provide appropriate independent review more promptly for these type of evaluations.
Most people living in low-income settings have apparently concluded that following recommendations that require them to wash hands with soap ten, 20, or more times per day is not feasible [2]. The observations from this program evaluation suggest that to prevent childhood diarrhea the most important occasions for handwashing and the technique for effective handwashing differ from standard recommendations. Specifically, handwashing promotion programs in rural Bangladesh should not attempt to modify handwashing behavior at all five key times, but should focus primarily on handwashing after defecation and before food preparation. Because handwashing before food preparation is such a different context than after defecation, developing and evaluating strategies to promote handwashing before food preparation is an important area for future research.
The lower prevalence of childhood diarrhea seen in this evaluation among children living in households where residents washed hands with soap are consistent with the many intervention trials that demonstrate less childhood diarrhea in households where residents are encouraged to wash hands with soap [1]. The findings from this study, that children living in households where field workers observed food preparers washing their hands with water alone before preparing food had less diarrhea compared with children living in households where fieldworkers observed that food preparers did not wash their hands, suggest that promoting handwashing exclusively with soap may be unwarranted. Handwashing with water alone might be seen as a step on the handwashing ladder: handwashing with water is good; handwashing with soap is better. Additional controlled trials evaluating the effect on child health of interventions that include encouraging handwashing either with water alone or with soap and water would be particularly helpful to guide public health programs. More generally, research to develop and evaluate handwashing messages that account for the limited time and soap supplies available for low-income families, and are focused on those behaviors where there is the strongest evidence for a health benefit could help identify more effective strategies.
Author Contributions
Conceived and designed the experiments: SPL RBJ. Performed the experiments: AKH TH. Analyzed the data: SPL AKH. Wrote the paper: SPL AKH TH LU RBJ. ICMJE criteria for authorship read and met: SPL AKH TH LU RBJ. Agree with the manuscript's results and conclusions: SPL AKH TH LU RBJ. Wrote the first draft of the paper: SPL.
- 1. Ejemot R, Ehiri J, Meremikwu M, Critchley J (2008) Hand washing for preventing diarrhoea. Cochrane Database Syst Rev CD004265.
- 2. Curtis VA, Danquah LO, Aunger RV (2009) Planned, motivated and habitual hygiene behaviour: an eleven country review. Health Educ Res 24: 655–673.
- 3. Scott B, Curtis V, Rabie T, Garbrah-Aidoo N (2007) Health in our hands, but not in our heads: understanding hygiene motivation in Ghana. Health Policy Plan 22: 225–233.
- 4. Hoque BA, Briend A (1991) A comparison of local handwashing agents in Bangladesh. J Trop Med Hyg 94: 61–64.
- 5.
Iyer P, Sara J, Curtis V, Scott B, Cardosi J (2005) The handwashing handbook. A guide for developing a hygiene promotion program to increase handwashing with soap. Washington (D.C.): World Bank.
- 6.
Kleinau E, Pyle DF (2004) Assessing hygiene improvement. Guidelines for household and community levels. Washington (D.C.): Environmental Health Project.
- 7.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2010) Handwashing: Clean hands save lives. Atlanta (Georgia): Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
- 8. Zeitlyn S, Islam F (1991) The use of soap and water in two Bangladeshi communities: implications for the transmission of diarrhea. Rev Infect Dis 13: Suppl 4S259–S264.
- 9.
Budlender B, Chobokoane N, Mpetsheni Y (2001) A survey of time use: How South African women and men spend their time. Pretoria: Statistics South Africa.
- 10.
PPPHW (2009) Global Handwashing Day 15 October Planner's Guide. Washington (D.C.): PPPHW.
- 11. Loevinsohn BP (1990) Health education interventions in developing countries: a methodological review of published articles. Int J Epidemiol 19: 788–794.
- 12. Vyas S, Kumaranayake L (2006) Constructing socio-economic status indices: how to use principal components analysis. Health Policy Plan 21: 459–468.
- 13. Barros AJD, Victoria CG (2005) A nationwide wealth score based on the 2000 Brazilian demographic census. Rev Saude Publica 39: 1–6.
- 14. Houweling TA, Kunst AE, Mackenbach JP (2003) Measuring health inequality among children in developing countries: does the choice of the indicator of economic status matter? Int J Equity Health 2: 8.
- 15. Hanley JA, Negassa A, Edwardes MD, Forrester JE (2003) Statistical analysis of correlated data using generalized estimating equations: an orientation. Am J Epidemiol 157: 364–375.
- 16. Gorter AC, Sandiford P, Pauw J, Morales P, Perez RM, et al. (1998) Hygiene behaviour in rural Nicaragua in relation to diarrhoea. Int J Epidemiol 27: 1090–1100.
- 17. Lynch MF, Tauxe RV, Hedberg CW (2009) The growing burden of foodborne outbreaks due to contaminated fresh produce: risks and opportunities. Epidemiol Infect 137: 307–315.
- 18. Sivapalasingam S, Friedman CR, Cohen L, Tauxe RV (2004) Fresh produce: a growing cause of outbreaks of foodborne illness in the United States, 1973 through 1997. J Food Prot 67: 2342–2353.
- 19. Davis H, Taylor JP, Perdue JN, Stelma GN Jr, Humphreys JM Jr, et al. (1988) A shigellosis outbreak traced to commercially distributed shredded lettuce. Am J Epidemiol 128: 1312–1321.
- 20. Srikantiah P, Bodager D, Toth B, Kass-Hout T, Hammond R, et al. (2005) Web-based investigation of multistate salmonellosis outbreak. Emerg Infect Dis 11: 610–612.
- 21. Asplund K, Nurmi E (1991) The growth of salmonellae in tomatoes. Int J Food Microbiology 13: 177–181.
- 22. Rangel JM, Sparling PH, Crowe C, Griffin PM, Swerdlow DL (2005) Epidemiology of Escherichia coli O157:H7 outbreaks, United States, 1982–2002. Emerg Infect Dis 11: 603–609.
- 23. Gorman R, Bloomfield S, Adley CC (2002) A study of cross-contamination of food-borne pathogens in the domestic kitchen in the Republic of Ireland. Int J Food Microbiol 76: 143–150.
- 24. Islam MS, Hasan MK, Khan SI (1993) Growth and survival of Shigella flexneri in common Bangladeshi foods under various conditions of time and temperature. Appl Environ Microbiol 59: 652–654.
- 25. Kolvin JL, Roberts D (1982) Studies on the growth of Vibrio cholerae biotype eltor and biotype classical in foods. J Hyg (Lond) 89: 243–252.
- 26. Davey KR (1989) A predictive model for combined temperature and water activity on microbial growth during the growth phase. J Appl Bacteriol 67: 483–488.
- 27. McElroy DM, Jaykus LA, Foegeding PM (2000) Validation and analysis of modeled predictions of growth of Bacillus cereus spores in boiled rice. J Food Prot 63: 268–272.
- 28.
Teunis PFM, van der Heijden OG, van der Giessen JWB, Havelaar AH (1996) The dose-response relation in human volunteers for gastro-intestinal pathogens. Bilthoven, The Netherlands: National Institute of Public Health and the Environment (RIVM).
- 29. Bollaerts K, Aerts M, Faes C, Grijspeerdt K, Dewulf J, et al. (2008) Human salmonellosis: estimation of dose-illness from outbreak data. Risk Anal 28: 427–440.
- 30. Roberts D (1982) Factors contributing to outbreaks of food poisoning in England and Wales 1970–1979. J Hyg (Lond) 89: 491–498.
- 31. Luby SP, Kadir MA, Yushuf Sharker MA, Yeasmin F, Unicomb L, et al. (2010) A community-randomised controlled trial promoting waterless hand sanitizer and handwashing with soap, Dhaka, Bangladesh. Trop Med Int Health 15: 1508–1516.
- 32. Stanton BF, Clemens JD (1987) An educational intervention for altering water-sanitation behaviors to reduce childhood diarrhea in urban Bangladesh. II. A randomized trial to assess the impact of the intervention on hygienic behaviors and rates of diarrhea. Am J Epidemiol 125: 292–301.
- 33. Kaltenthaler E, Waterman R, Cross P (1991) Faecal indicator bacteria on the hands and the effectiveness of hand-washing in Zimbabwe. J Trop Med Hyg 94: 358–363.
- 34. Sprunt K, Redman W, Leidy G (1973) Antibacterial effectiveness of routine hand washing. Pediatrics 52: 264–271.
- 35. Lowbury EJ, Lilly HA, Bull JP (1964) Disinfection of hands: removal of transient organisms. Br Med J 2: 230–233.
- 36. Hoque BA, Mahalanabis D, Pelto B, Alam MJ (1995) Research methodology for developing efficient handwashing options: an example from Bangladesh. J Trop Med Hyg 98: 469–475.
- 37. Luby SP, Gupta SK, Sheikh MA, Johnston RB, Ram PK, et al. (2008) Tubewell water quality and predictors of contamination in three flood-prone areas in Bangladesh. J Appl Microbiol 105: 1002–1008.
- 38. Islam MS, Siddika A, Khan MN, Goldar MM, Sadique MA, et al. (2001) Microbiological analysis of tube-well water in a rural area of Bangladesh. Appl Environ Microbiol 67: 3328–3330.
- 39. Drankiewicz D, Dundes L (2003) Handwashing among female college students. Am J Infect Control 31: 67–71.
- 40. Pedersen DM, Keithly S, Brady K (1986) Effects of an observer on conformity to handwashing norm. Percept Mot Skills 62: 169–170.
- 41. Munger K, Harris SJ (1989) Effects of an observer on handwashing in a public restroom. Perceptual and Motor Skills 69: 733–734.
- 42. Pittet D, Simon A, Hugonnet S, Pessoa-Silva CL, Sauvan V, et al. (2004) Hand hygiene among physicians: performance, beliefs, and perceptions. Ann Intern Med 141: 1–8.
- 43. Ram PK, Halder AK, Granger SP, Jones T, Hall P, et al. (2010) Is structured observation a valid technique to measure handwashing behavior? Use of acceleration sensors embedded in soap to assess reactivity to structured observation. Am J Trop Med Hyg 83: 1070–1076.
- 44. Cousens S, Kanki B, Toure S, Diallo I, Curtis V (1996) Reactivity and repeatability of hygiene behaviour: structured observations from Burkina Faso. Soc Sci Med 43: 1299–1308.


text:
The main center of higher education for a vast region, Kazan University has 19 institutes and faculties and 105 academic departments. It has over 47000 students, who follow 300 major degree programs.
The history of Kazan State University is associated with many world renowned figures, like the father of non-Euclidian geometry Nikolai Lobachevsky; the writer Leo Tolstoy; the discoverer of the Antarctic Ivan Simonov; the founder of organic chemistry Alexander Butlerov; a father of modern linguistics Ivan Baudouin de Courtenay; the discoverer of electron spin resonance Evgeniy Zavoisky; and the Soviet leader Vladimir Ulianov-Lenin
Stukenberg Geological Museum
The Stukenberg Museum of Geology and Mineralogy of Kazan State University is one of the oldest and richest natural science museums in Russia. Those ones were established at higher educational institutions in the end of the XVIII century and had both home and foreign collections unlike regional museums formed later on. The museum was founded in 1804 in accordance with the I Order of the Kazan Emperor University.
A two-century history of the museum development shows close interaction between scientists' creativity and results of their work as monographic collections have always been an integral part of scientific researches. For many generations of geologists the museum collections are that initial documents, which serves as a basis for researches and general conclusions as well as for definition of new scientific ideas. To save one's own "golden collection" and its history for future generations is a primary task of all natural science museums of Russia.
The contemporary store of the museum implies six main sections: ores, minerals and petrography; paleontology; dynamic geology and facies; monographic collections; geology of our region, mineral products of Tatarstan; scientific archive of museum history. There are more than 150000 samples from 60 countries in the museum, including collections of meteorites, rocks, minerals, ores, fossils of plants and animals.
Nowadays the KSU Museum of Geology and Mineralogy is one of the richest higher educational institution museums in the country. It is included in international and regional mineralogy reference books being a member of International Council of Museums (ICOM), the Commission by Mineralogy Museums of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Academic Council of the Tatarstan National Museum. It closely collaborates with regional and foreign natural science museums and geology institutions, providing collections' exchange and publications and realizing joint geological projects.
The research of Carboniferous and Permian of Volga and Kama Region is tightly connected with the name of Roderick Murchison and his colleagues who undertook several expeditions in European Russia in 1840-1841
The Kazan School of Geology was established in the 1860s, headed by the first professor of geology N.A.Golovkinsky, the founder of facies studies in Russia.
His follower A.A.Stukenberg, had been working in Kazan for 30 years and was rightfully considered as the founder of Kazan Geological School.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Balancing the Nervous Energies
Taught by Yogi Bhajan on January 28, 1980. Listen to the full lecture here:
This meditation is also known as the Meditation for Hair-Trigger Efficiency.
"This meditation brings the entire nervous and glandular system into balance. By putting the thumbs together in this mudra, the sciatic nerve is neutralized at the point of ego. (Thumbs represent the energy of the ego.) This particular balance puts pressure on certain meridian points in the shoulders.
"Be conscious that even with the breath out, you are still alive. A lot of problems in family and social relationships are because you don't have control over the breath. The beauty of life is based on the breath. It is the link between you and God and the breath of life is what gives you the sensitivity to your environment.
"Do this meditation at lunchtime or any time you want to be sharper and have an edge over another person. It balances all the nervous energies and the glandular system to tune them to maximum efficiency. It can raise efficiency to the point of life over death. No need to take 'uppers' and 'downers'; the breath of life can balance you any time you want."
-Yogi Bhajan
Posture: Sit in easy pose with a straight spine. With the elbows bent, raise the hands up and in until they meet at the level of the heart a few inches from the body, palms facing the chest. Place the palm of the right hand against the back of the left hand. Hold the hands and forearms parallel to the ground so that the fingers of the right hand point toward the left side and the fingers of the left hand point toward the right side. Press the thumb tips together.
Focus: The eyes are nine-tenths closed.
Breath: Inhale deeply through the nose and calmly hold the breath in for 15-20 seconds. Exhale completely through the nose and calmly hold the breath out for 15-20 seconds. Concentrate on the breath.
"The link between you and God is the breath. Be conscious of the total breath in all three forms…Air must go all the way out on the exhale so that all the heart valves get equal pressure, and the brain and central nervous system will trigger survival systems for a few seconds." – Yogi Bhajan
Time: Continue for 3 to 5 minutes.
*This meditation was originally published in the Survival Kit Manual which is no longer in print. It was subsequently published in the manual Praana Praanee Praanayam.
Your experience is important!
Share your wisdom with others like you. Leave your comment below


text:
The average teacher salary in the Mona Shores Public Schools was $58,544 in 2009, and employees are not required to contribute anything to health insurance policies that cost the district some $12,800 annually. These are among the highlights in the current collective bargaining agreement negotiated between the district and the local arm of the Michigan Education Association union.
About 67 percent of the district's $34 million operating budget goes toward paying employees covered by this contract, which covers teachers and a few other employee groups. Mona Shores enrolls about 2,800 students and employs approximately 170 teachers.
The base salary for most Mona Shores teachers is between $49,184 and $71,464. How much an individual actually gets is determined by a single salary schedule that grants automatic pay raises based solely on years on the job plus additional pedagogy credentials. Teachers are granted "tenure" after four years on the job, and once tenured, are evaluated once every three years, but neither these evaluations nor the performance of their students affect how much they are paid.
Mona Shores teachers receive "step" increases for their first 12 years in the district. These increases range from two to nine percent, and are in addition to the two percent "across-the-board" annual salary increase. District teachers also get annual longevity payments that add $757 (15 to 19 years), $1,515 (20 to 24 years) or $2,272 (25 or more years).
School employees receive a lifetime pension when they retire, and also expect to get lifetime post-retirement health benefits. Based on the state-run retirement system's formula, the starting pension for a Mona Shores teacher with 30 years experience and an average base salary of $71,464 (the final "step" on the salary schedule) would be $32,159. For most retirees, this amount increases by 3 percent every year. An employee may begin collecting a pension upon reaching age 55, or younger if he or she has 30 years of employment in public schools.
In addition to their state-provided pension, teachers in Mona Shores get a severance package equivalent to $1,000 for each year in the district (with a maximum of $12,500). The district also provides an annual payment of $1,750 or $3,000 for retirees to use on their portion of their retiree health care premiums, and puts $250 per year in a 403(b) account for every teacher. They also get $500 for notifying the district of their retirement by a certain date.
The union contract includes extra bonus pay for additional duties and certifications. Teachers can get anywhere between $1,000 to $5,000 for taking on an "oversized" class, as defined by the contract. Athletic event coordinators get between $5,875 and $7,385 per year, and a teacher taking on guidance counselor duties nets another $2,652. Teacher "mentors" and those participating in the "professional recognition program" get between $378 and $758 per year.
Teachers can earn extra cash by coaching or participating in other extracurricular activities, such as band, drama, yearbook, intramurals, student clubs and many others. Aside the 80 different athletic-related positions (which pay between $1,136 and $7,385 annually), there are nearly 30 different extracurricular positions that pay between $1,137 and $6,060 each year.
All teachers are allotted 10 sick days per year, and can accumulate an unlimited amount of them. Upon retiring, they will get $15, $20 or $25 per unused sick day, depending on how many they've kept. The district allows for three personal days per year as well. Teachers also get paid leave time for jury duty, conferences and conventions, and professional visitation days. Upon returning from leave, they are guaranteed the same or equitable teaching position.
Finally, the union contract also covers working hours and conditions. It defines the "work year" as 183 days, of which a maximum of 180 are student instruction days. Each day measures about seven and one-half hours, which works out to a total work year of 1,350 hours. The national average for all occupations is 1,792. Teachers may not be required to attend more than two after-school meetings (such as parent-teacher conferences), and the district must pay $30 an hour for additional meetings beyond the school day.
Read the fully detailed analysis of the Mona Shores contract here.
Get insightful commentary and the most reliable research on Michigan issues sent straight to your inbox.


text:
A physician or dentist does not undertake to cure you. He only has to do his best for you according to the standard of care for his community or medical or dental specialty. If he did not, you have a legitimate complaint. If he did, you probably d
o not have a case, no matter how disastrous the results.
Many years ago, an anesthesiologist in Rhode Island had a patient die while under anesthesia. The doctor admitted that it would not have happened if he had learned up-to-date techniques used by anesthetists in Boston, which was only 40 miles away. But, he had never gone there to learn and claimed that his outmoded and dangerous techniques were the same as those used by other doctors in the same small city, and the court believed him.
That excuse would not work today. With modern education and travel facilities, more and more states have recognized that a small-town physician or dentist has plenty of opportunity to attend meetings and take courses to keep abreast of new developments in medicine or dentistry. In most states, it is no longer a defense for the doctor to claim that he met the local standard, especially if it is a low standard.
In 1929 the American Dental Association began to establish dental board certification for dentists who wished to specialize. These doctors spend two or more years in advanced training and then must pass examinations administered by a specialty board recognized by the American Dental Association. Since the training, exams, and standards of practice for Board Certified dental specialists are the same everywhere in the country, they can be judged by a national standard.
In the 1930's, the American Specialty Boards were established to insure that a physician, who claimed to be a medical specialist, was really competent. To be Board Certified as competent in a specialty, a doctor has to spend years training in a hospital and pass rigorous exams. Here, too, since the training, exams, and standards of practice for Board Certified medical specialists are the same everywhere in the country, they can be judged by a national standard.
Sometimes Board Certified specialists will try to defeat medical malpractice cases by claiming they are only local doctors. A heart surgeon in California claimed that he practiced according to a lower standard when he operated in San Bernardino than when he operated in a university hospital in Los Angeles. Unusually, that does not work.
The Standard of Care
There are several ways you can judge whether or not a physician or dentist lived up to the standard of care, or whether he has indeed committed malpractice. In other words, whether the bad result that was devastating for you and your family was justified, or whether the doctor was really to blame.
The Average or Reasonably-Competent Practitioner Rule
A physician or dentist does not have to be the best in the country or even in the top 50%. If all the doctors in the U.S. were rated on a scale from 1 to 10 and the average was 5, half would be above 5 and half below. Does that mean that all the doctors who fall below the 5 average should be considered incompetent? No. As the U.S. Supreme Court once put it, if 51% of the doctors in the U.S. do things in a certain way, it does not mean that the other 49% are automatically guilty of malpractice. The average is what is considered as generally accepted by the profession. All a doctor has to show is that he acted with reasonable skill or as most of his colleagues would have acted.


text:
Updated terms of use
In June of last year, all that could be said about terms of use at the popular website Find A Grave was…
There weren't any.1
What a difference a year makes.
Because Find A Grave certainly has terms of use now, and they're causing one reader to scratch her head.
Terms of use, you may recall, are "the limits somebody who owns something you want to see or copy or use puts on whether or not he'll let you see or copy or use it. These are limits that are different from copyright protection, since the law says what is and isn't copyrighted and you can own a thing without owning the copyright. So this isn't copyright law; it's contract law — you and whoever owns the thing you want to see or copy or use reach a deal."2
And in the case of Find A Grave, it's the terms of use that govern first and foremost what the general web-using public can do with all the content — the words and photos and more — that Find A Grave members upload to the site and, just as importantly, what rights Find A Grave has to that content.
Updated as of 17 June 2013, Find A Grave's terms of use say this about the use of its site:
The Website contains graphics, information, data, user generated information, editorial and other content accessible by users (the 'Content') and all Content is owned, licensed to and/or copyrighted by Find A Grave and may be used only in accordance with this limited use license. The Website is protected by copyright as a collective work and/or compilation, pursuant to U.S. copyright laws, international conventions, and other copyright laws. You may access the Website, use the graphics, information, data, editorial and other Content only for personal use, professional family history research or scholarly historical research. Republication or resale of any of the Content or other protected data is prohibited. Bots, crawlers, spiders, data miners, scraping and any other automatic access tool are expressly prohibited.3
And that language is giving reader Debbie Dale pause: "Can you explain their idea of 'Content?'," she asks. "Does that include information found on a digital photograph of a headstone? Am I wrong in thinking that only the photograph is protected by copyright and not the birth/death info I transcribed from the headstone — which I had hoped to use in a blog post."
Let's start with the really easy part of the question: is there a copyright issue in using birth/death information appearing on the site? No. The purely factual information contained on Find A Grave — the names of the deceased, their dates of birth and death, the places of the burial — are not and cannot be copyright protected. The law couldn't be clearer that point: only original works with some degree of creativity can be copyrighted.4 "Copyright does not protect facts, … although it may protect the way these … are expressed."5
Find A Grave doesn't even try to claim that it has a copyright on purely factual information or on content (like photographs or text) it receives from its members: "No copyright is claimed on non-original or licensed material."6
What it does claim is what's called a compilation copyright — a copyright on the site as a whole, the way it looks, the way it works, the underlying code that makes it all come together. In a case like this, the copyright covers "only the additions, changes, or other new material appearing for the first time in the work. Protection does not extend to any … material, … owned by a third party."7
So the law isn't any bar to using the factual information Debbie wants to use.
But what about that limited use license that says "(r)epublication … of any of the Content … is prohibited"?
Here's where The Legal Genealogist really really really wishes people who write terms of use would stop and think for a minute before they write them.
Because — no matter what the exact words are — there's no way that Find A Grave really means that a user like Debbie can't use the purely factual information on the site, giving — of course! — proper credit to the site as the source.
Let's be serious here. If all we could do was oooh and aaah while reading or looking at what's on that website, and not use it in our research, write it up, publish it, share it with others, none of us would be taking photos and uploading them and other info to Find A Grave. Reading that language that restrictively is inconsistent with the whole purpose of the website, and Find A Grave itself says that "(f)or User Provided Content, Find A Grave is merely hosting and providing access."8
Its terms of use for content that users upload explain that:
By submitting User Provided Content to Find A Grave, you grant Find A Grave a transferable license to use, host, sublicense and distribute your submission to the extent and in the form or context we deem appropriate on or through any media or medium and with any technology or devices now known or hereafter developed or discovered. Except for the rights granted in this Agreement, Find A Grave acquires no title or ownership rights in or to any content you submit and nothing in this Agreement conveys any ownership rights in the content you submit to us.9
And, it says,
Once you upload content to the Website, it may become accessible by all persons accessing the Website. Other Website users may be able to copy, download, store, edit, change or delete certain content that you post. You may delete content that you previously posted on the Website; however, if others have downloaded or otherwise stored copies of the content, it may still be publicly viewable.10
So my take on this is simple: the "no republication" part has to be read together with the sentence that follows it — "Bots, crawlers, spiders, data miners, scraping and any other automatic access tool are expressly prohibited." What Find A Grave considers a violation of its terms of use is grabbing all, or even a big chunk, of the content.
Using specific factual information for a blog post, by contrast, is exactly why Find A Grave exists — to make information about our families more accessible and more useful. Not to lock it away.
- Judy G. Russell, "Grave terms of use," The Legal Genealogist, posted 20 Jun 2012 (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : accessed 15 Sep 2013). ↩
- Judy G. Russell, "A terms of use intro," The Legal Genealogist, posted 27 Apr 2012 (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : accessed 15 Sep 2013). ↩
- "Find A Grave Terms of Use," Findagrave.com (http://www.findagrave.com : accessed 15 Sep 2013). ↩
- See 17 U.S.C. §102 ("Copyright protection subsists… in original works of authorship"). ↩
- "Copyright in General: What does copyright protect?," U.S. Copyright Office, Frequently Asked Questions (http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq : accessed 15 Sep 2013). ↩
- "Copyright," Findagrave.com (http://www.findagrave.com : accessed 15 Sep 2013). ↩
- U.S. Copyright Office, Copyright Registration for Derivative Works, circular 14 (http://www.copyright.gov : accessed 15 Sep 2013), at 2. ↩
- "Find A Grave Terms of Use," Findagrave.com (http://www.findagrave.com : accessed 15 Sep 2013). ↩
- Ibid. ↩
- Ibid. ↩


text:
Re: Poetry
I didn't think it was a stupid thing to ask.
It true what I have posted mostly is on the darker side. Many times I write darker things so they don't reside within me and then I can be a nicer, more contented individual.
Thanks Terra, i say this a lot, but you really are too nice about my work.
"Suggestion: Electrocution works well. Evisceration and Decapitation are also effective, or um, so I've heard."


text:
Designing Solutions Through Programming - block 8 - October 2 2018 Lesson Notes
What are we going to learn today?[edit]
How am I being assessed today?[edit]I will assess you formatively today, and make a professional judgement to what extent you understand our learning material. I will use observation, your written work, answers to questions, and contribution to class discussions as data to make my decisions. I will also ask you to complete a self-assessment which I will use to help me guage how well you think you understand our material in class. |
As a computer scientist, you have:[edit]
Credits[edit] |


text:
Home >
News & Policies >
Policies in Focus >
Global Diplomacy
Oval Office
January 13, 2009
PRESIDENT BUSH: Bienvenido a mi amigo. Mr. President, welcome. It has been a true pleasure to work with President Calderón. He's a man of conviction, he is a man of principle, and he is a man who's willing to take on tough challenges. I appreciate every meeting I've had with him.
I want to talk about two subjects quickly. One, Americans are concerned about the battle that's taking place in Mexico, and I want our fellow citizens to understand that this man understands the responsibilities of government to provide security; that he will not allow his country, or parts of his country, to be taken over by narco-traffickers; and that the United States of America wants to share and help deal with the issue on both sides of the border. The less drugs we use, the less pressure there will be in Mexico. We have got responsibilities to help prevent guns from going from the United States into Mexico.
And so, Mr. President, you and I have laid the foundation for a constructive and mutual engagement on this issue.
And secondly, I want to thank you for your steadfast support of trade. I'm a big, strong believer in NAFTA. NAFTA has been good for the United States of America, and NAFTA has been good for Mexico. And I want to thank you for that.
And so, Mr. President, it has been a pleasure to work with you. Thank you for your friendship.
PRESIDENT CALDERÓN: (Speaking in Spanish.)
(Speaking in English.) We have a strong commitment in order to fight and defeat the criminals in Mexico, and we will do so. And we have a strong commitment to the rule of law, enforcement of the law in our country.
(Speaking in Spanish.)
(Speaking in English.) Thank you, President Bush. Good luck in the future.
PRESIDENT BUSH: Thank you, sir.
INTERPRETER: Good afternoon, friends. I wanted to say that I came here to Washington, D.C., to wish President Bush the very best. I want to wish him and his family all the best in this new phase. And I want to thank him especially for the friendship that he has shown me over the last two years in facing our common challenges together.
PRESIDENT CALDERÓN: And his support.
INTERPRETER: And for his support. With regard to the issues that President Bush has raised, I want to say that our administration has made a crucial decision in this regard. We are going to be promoting law, we are going to be promoting order in our country. We will be promoting the rule of law for all Mexicans.
We have worked jointly in this regard. We have worked together on the drug trafficking combat front. We have worked together to combat organized crime.
This is not an isolated problem for any country. This is a common problem that affects us both. And in order to do so, we have worked together and we have made this resolution.
We are committed to fighting criminals and to overcoming them once and for all. And the rule of law is the one thing that I want to stress we are going to promote, no matter what, in our country.
I agree with what the President has said with regard to the North America Free Trade Agreement. It has proved to be very useful, both for the United States and for Mexico. In that regard, millions of jobs were created here in the United States. Mexico is the second-largest purchaser of U.S. goods. We buy, in fact, twice as many U.S. products as the People's Republic of China. Two million jobs based on exports were created in Mexico --
PRESIDENT CALDERÓN: No, in the United States.
INTERPRETER: In the United States -- excuse me -- as a result of NAFTA. And yesterday, I was discussing with President-Elect Obama the fact that we are willing to continue working on future additions of a way to continue to build on the achievements that NAFTA has created -- benefits, issues of concern to both of our citizens. I understand that there are issues of concern to Mexicans, as well as to U.S. citizens, on the issue of the environment and on labor.
I want to wish the very best to President Bush, to his family, as well as to the United States. The U.S. will continue to solve its problems with success, I have no doubt about that. And we in Mexico can only wish the very best for this country, a great country, and for its citizens in overcoming the economic crisis it is now facing, overcoming other problems, as well as drug consumption, because any problems arising in the United States in some way will also affect Mexican citizens, as well.
And so we can only wish you the very best in every area. Thank you.
PRESIDENT BUSH: Thank you, thank you. Adios.


text:
by Anthony Sizemore, Student Sports Reporter
The Alice Lloyd Lady Eagles were back on their home court on Tuesday, February 11th. The Lady Eagles fell behind, but roared back to take an epic 107-105 double overtime victory over Asbury University.
The hosts had won three in a row — six of their last seven — and were peaking at the right time. The home team started off well, jumping out 8-3 early on. After that, it seemed as if almost everything that Asbury shot went into the basket. The Lady Eagles matched up in a two-three zone for most of the half, but were forced to abandon it in favor of a man-to-man due to the hot shooting of AU. The host Eagles played well on the offensive end, but did not have an answer for the road team's nine three-pointers. Even with 18 first-half points from leading scorer Ariel Nickell, Alice Lloyd found itself trailing at halftime, 50-41.
In the second half, things would get worse before they would get better for ALC.
With fifteen minutes to go in the second stanza, Asbury stretched their lead out to as many as eighteen and was totally dominating the contest. But this is when the time came for Alice Lloyd to begin their incredible comeback. Sparked by Carla Booth, Taylor Arthur, and scrappy Tailor Morgan, the Lady Eagles sliced into Asbury's once enormous lead, but still trailed 86-78 with just over two minutes to play. A 7-2 burst whipped the crowd into a frenzy and got the hosts within a bucket at 88-85 with under a minute remaining.
With a chance to tie the contest, the hosts missed a game-tying three, forcing Asbury to shoot free throws. AU led by five with just 11 ticks left on the clock, and it looked as if they would hang on for the win. However, Alice Lloyd's Booth raced down the court and hit a driving layup with 6 seconds remaining. On the inbounds play, ALC put excellent pressure on the ball and forced the visitors to throw a long pass that was picked off at half court by Eagle guard Megan Jones. Jones spotted the freshman Tailor Morgan behind the arc, and the youngster coolly swished a clutch three-pointer with .01 remaining to send the game into overtime. The roar of the crowd was deafening.
In the first overtime period, Asbury would once again take the lead. However, the home team would punch right back to tie the game at 96. Both teams would exchange baskets late in the session to knot the score at 98. Alice Lloyd was able to force a turnover to get the ball back, and they held for the last shot. In the closing seconds, ALC fired up a first potential game-winning shot that would miss. Freshman Arthur corralled the loose ball, but her put-back would rim out, sending the game into a second overtime with both teams still tied at 98.
In double OT, Asbury scored first and held a 100-99 lead after Alice Lloyd made one out of two free throws with 4:08 remaining. Both teams traded a couple of buckets, and AU continued to hold on to their one-point advantage, 104-103, with 2:20 to go. ALC's Booth would convert on some huge free throws to get her squad even with Asbury at 105 with 1:05 to play. Shortly afterwards, Megan Jones went 1-for-2 from the foul line to put the Lady Eagles up by one. Asbury would have a chance to regain control, but missed a contested shot; on the ensuing rebound, AU fouled Nickell with 15 seconds left. Nickell swished one of two free throws, setting the score at 107-105 in favor of the home team.
The visitors had one final chance, and with the way the game had gone, the crowd fully expected them to score and send the contest to a third overtime. With precious seconds winding down and under suffocating defense, Asbury was forced to fire and missed an off-balanced trey. AU center Kelli Rinehart rebounded and tossed up a short jump shot at the buzzer. Fortunately, to the delight of the home fans, it bounced off.
For ALC (16-7, 10-3 KIAC) Booth had a sensational game with a career-high 42 points to go along with 4 assists. The Warfield, KY native always seemed to drain a huge shot whenever ALC needed it. Senior forward Ariel Nickell continued her scintillating play with 29 points and 12 rebounds. Taylor Arthur contributed 13 points to go along with 7 boards.
Asbury (19-6, 9-4 KIAC), who battled for fifty minutes, was led by Annissia Wood's 37 points. Wood was 5-for-5 from three-point range. For the game, Asbury's Lady Eagles sank 15 from behind the arc.
With the win, Alice Lloyd joins Point Park at #1 in the Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference rankings.
The Lady Eagles will now get a short rest until Saturday, February 15th, when they are scheduled to welcome Midway to Pippa Passes. Midway defeated Alice Lloyd earlier this season. The game will tip at 2 PM.


text:
A man convicted of sexually and emotionally abusing a teenaged girl for years was handed a sentence 50 per cent longer than requested in a joint submission by Crown and defence in a rare decision by a provincial court judge.
Andrew Mullaly elicited no emotion in courtroom 203 at the Chilliwack Law Courts on June 21 as Judge Andrea Ormiston sentenced him to 18 months jail followed by three years probation, the maximum allowed under the charge conviction.
Crown counsel Grant Lindsey and Mullaly's lawyer Darrel Schultz had put forth a joint submission in April for one year in jail followed by 18 months probation.
Judge Ormiston decided that sentence for Mullaly who committed as many as two dozen acts of "sexual humiliation" on the girl between the ages of 11 and 16 was "not only unfit but one that is contrary to the public interest."
In rejecting the joint submission, the judge pointed to a Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) decision that said joint submissions should not be rejected unless that sentence would be contrary to the public interest. In R v Anthony Cook, a decision delivered by Justice Michael Moldaver of the SCC, it was made clear that a joint submission should not be rejected lightly.
"Joint submissions promote the smooth operation of the criminal justice system," Moldaver wrote. "The appellant gave up his right to a trial and any self-defence argument he may have had. In the end, the trial judge's deviation from the recommended custodial sentence — by only six months — amounts to little more than tinkering."
In Canadian law, judges are not bound by joint submissions, however, the courts are generally reluctant to divert from what is proposed by both Crown or defence assuming there is case law showing similar sentences for similar crimes.
Ormiston decided, however, that in this case the submission was indeed not in the public interest.
"I find that under the specific circumstances of this plea agreement, one year cannot be reconciled with the principles and ranges established in the authorities," she said.
"I find the joint submission is contrary to the public interest and I'm rejecting it."
Mullaly was charged with sexual assault, extortion and possession of child pornography for ongoing abuse of the girl from the time she was 11 until 16. The multi-year abuse and humiliation began with emotional "punishment" that expanded to repeated instances of sexual touching and sexual assault.
During the brief hearing on April 12, Lindsey read parts of a victim impact statement from the girl, in which she said she felt "used, manipulated, hopeless, ashamed."
• READ MORE: Judge questions joint submission for Chilliwack man who sexually assaulted girl
It was then in court that Judge Ormiston first raised the spectre of rejecting the joint submission, based on her concerns about the serious nature of the facts, the brevity with which case law was presented, and the rushed nature of the hearing late on a Friday afternoon.
As part of the plea agreement, Crown proceeded summarily rather than by indictment, which meant the conviction to which he pleaded is substantially less serious than if it were to be heard in BC Supreme Court.
As the sentence was read out and he was taken away by a sheriff to jail, Mullaly expressed no emotion.
Another wrinkle in the case occurred after the April sentencing hearing when local Crown counsel — ordered by the provincial Public Prosecution Service — applied to extend the standard publication ban name on the identity of the victim to include Mullaly's name.
• READ MORE: OPINION: When observation affects what is observed
The application, unsurprisingly supported by Mullaly, was left undecided upon between April and the June 20 appearance. In the interim, Judge Ormiston asked Crown to ask the victim her perspective on extending the publication ban to Mullaly.
"They are not concerned with the mentioning of his name in the newspaper," Lindsey said in court on June 20.
Ormiston then explained how the singular concern of the court is of the privacy of the victim. She pointed to the fact that the Crown was not seeking a remedy for past instances when Mullaly's name was used, and no evidence of a publication ban violation was presented in court.
"Today I have the added evidence that the victim does not share the Crown's concerns," she said, adding that there was nothing presented to her to explain why Mullaly's name should not appear in print.
"I simply cannot make that finding on the specific evidence that has been heard here in court."
She left the original publication ban on any information that could identify the victim in place, thereby leaving the onus on the media to not reveal her identity.
Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.


text:
They join Google in choosing wind for the power-hungry facilities, which house IT equipment for computing, networking and data storage, as well as infrastructure for electricity and cooling.
On 13 November, Facebook said that its massive new data centre in Altoona, Iowa, which opens in early 2015, will be supplied by 100% wind power.
Facebook is not disclosing details but is known to have started developing a nearby wind project in Wellsburg with RPM Access. Facebook later "transferred" its rights to the 139MW project to MidAmerican Energy, part of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway.
Speaking about the structure of the deal, Vincent Van Son, data centre energy manager at Faceboook, said the social media company is matching the data centre's energy consumption with RECs generated from the wind project.
Facebook said that Iowa's plentiful wind power influenced the siting of the $1 billion project, the company's fourth data centre. "Wind is abundant in Iowa, and this makes wind energy far more cost-competitive than solar power," said Van Son. "Wind turbines also minimise the disruption to existing farmland since they have a smaller physical footprint."
Asked whether Facebook would invest equity in a wind farm, Van Son said that the company will continue to evaluate this option. Facebook's total energy use in data centres in 2012 was about 678,000MWh — up from 510,000MWh in 2011— whereas its office space and other facilities used only 27,000MWh.
In a different type of deal, Microsoft announced a week earlier that it had signed a 20-year power purchase agreement with RES Americas for all the output from the 100MW Keechi wind project, to be completed near Jacksboro in Texas in 2015. The electricity, partly funded by the company's own internal carbon fee, is for a Microsoft data centre in San Antonio.
Speaking about the deal, Josh Henretig, Microsoft's director of environmental sustainability, said: "The economics of wind energy have been improving over the last several years, with higher turbine efficiency and lower development costs, such that many wind projects are delivering power to the grid at parity with fossil fuels. This makes wind a smart choice."
On the challenges of buying wind, he said: "In most power markets generators are typically not able to contract directly with consumers... Microsoft's purchase agreement for the Keechi wind project, which includes all of the [RECs] associated with the project, is an approach that we believe works well within the current regulatory environment."
But the undisputed frontrunner for data-centre purchases of wind is Google, with five contracts so far for 574MW of wind energy in Iowa, Oklahoma, Texas and Sweden. It has invested $75 million in equity in RPM Access' Rippey wind farm in Iowa, where it already has a "hyper-scale" data centre.
Electricity used by data centres worldwide increased by about 56% from 2005 to 2010, while in the US it increased by about 36%, according to research by Jon Koomey, a professor at Stanford University.
Data centres now account for about 1-2% of the US's electricity consumption, says the non-profit Business for Social Responsibility (BSR). BSR is partnering with leading technology companies — such as Facebook, eBay, HP, Adobe and Symantec — on the Future of Internet Power project. The aim is to cut the climate impact of data centres, including by using renewable energy.
Data centres have a fairly constant demand for electricity because they are so optimised for efficiency and because their reach is often global, said BSR's Corinna Kester. Any source of renewable energy chosen for a data centre must typically be able to be expanded easily, reliable and — above all — low cost, she said.


text:
ISOC increases support for the Internet Governance Forum
Buenos Aires, Argentina – November 25, 2013 – The Internet Society Board of Trustees, during its meeting in Buenos Aires, agreed to increase support for the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) as an indispensable part of the Internet ecosystem, including making a sizeable financial contribution. They also warned against rash reactions to issues such as pervasive surveillance, which has sparked widespread concern and discussion.
"Voluntary collaboration guided by a shared set of principles among institutions has been key to the Internet's amazing success and robustness. Institutions in the Internet ecosystem will continue to evolve in response to new challenges," stated Robert Hinden, Chair of the Internet Society Board of Trustees.
In addition to increasing its own support for the IGF, the Internet Society Board supported the establishment of a legal structure to facilitate financial support by others. The Board further called for strengthening of the distributed and decentralized approach to addressing challenges, and avoiding approaches that would impose borders on the Internet and lead to fragmentation.
The Board of Trustees applauded action taken at the recent Internet Engineering Task Force meeting to work on enhancing the security of Internet technology in light of the disclosures about pervasive monitoring on the Internet.
President and CEO of the Internet Society Lynn St. Amour commented, "This is a crucial period in the Internet's development and the Internet Society is committed to working to strengthen the multistakeholder institutions that have been key to sustaining the open and global Internet."
About the Internet Society
The Internet Society is the trusted independent source for Internet information and thought leadership from around the world. With its principled vision and substantial technological foundation, the Internet Society promotes open dialogue on Internet policy, technology, and future development among users, companies, governments, and other organizations. Working with its members and Chapters around the world, the Internet Society enables the continued evolution and growth of the Internet for everyone. For more information, visit www.internetsociety.org.
- Download a PDF version
- Media contact: Wende Cover, [email protected], +1-703-439-277


text:
KDE 3.5.5 will be released next week
The K Desktop Environment will ship the 5th maintenance update and bug-fix release for KDE 3.5 next week. Highlights include vastly improved translations in the Farsi, Chinese, Khmer, Low Saxon and Slovak languages. A new version of kopete which will improve theme support and improved support for the Jabber and Yahoo! messenger protocols. Not to mention more performance and standards compliance in KHTML along with much needed fixes in rendering. There are bug fixes galore in this release as well with fixes to kdebase, kdelibs, kdebindings, kdegraphics, kdepim, kdeedu and many more. Trolltech shipped version 4.2 of Qt earlier this week and it looks like it will be the version that KDE 4 will be based on. I came across an interview with Matthias Ettrich from the June issue of Linux format that I thought you might like and the news that KDE has won "free software project of the year" in Linux Format's reader's choice awards. Last but not least, KDE is turning 10 years old in a couple of weeks, Matthias Ettrich and Mark Shuttleworth will be keynote speakers along with other guests including Klaus Knopper of the Knoppix LiveCD. Just a step or two away from KDE 4, I'm chomping at the bit already. |
Subject | Topic Starter | Replies | Views | Last Post |
running 3.5.5-1 | jimf | 1 | 3,337 | Oct 8, 2006 9:48 PM |
You cannot post until you login.